The story
EED, at Vaartstraat 14 in Leuven, Belgium, is a French restaurant that earned one Michelin star in 2026. Chef Philippe Heylen runs the kitchen behind a fixed dinner menu built on a small number of carefully chosen ingredients.
Heylen opened EED in 2018, after working at Hertog Jan in Bruges, when he was barely twenty-four. Gault&Millau gave the restaurant 16 points in 2026, praising dishes where a few premium ingredients carry the plate. He spends most of service in the kitchen itself.
A recent six-course tasting included rainbow trout tartare with fermented kohlrabi and a whey and lemon balm vinaigrette. Langoustine stew came with sunchoke, bergamot, hazelnut and smoked eel. Crispy sweetbreads arrived with pak choi and vin jaune mousseline, and the meal closed on stewed rhubarb with saffron ice cream and jasmine mousse.
Guests of five or six sit at the round table in the main room, while groups of seven to ten dine in a separate space on the EED menu. The wine list runs to red, white and natural wine selections, so the pairings can lean in whichever direction the courses suggest.
Recognition
Ambience
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History
High quality cooking
Down a small, near-deserted street behind the Leuven courthouse, a cryptic sign reading EED (“oath” in Dutch) hangs above an discreet doorway that leads to who knows where… After a stint at Hertog Jan in Bruges, Philippe Heylen was barely twenty-four yet brimming with ideas when he opened this mysterious, multi-award-winning restaurant back in 2018. Seven years on, the theatrics and Brillat-Savarin are long gone. What remains is a steady, unbroken flow of razor-sharp style which fires out from his kitchen-laboratory, a place he practically never steps away from. The evening we went, the six-course trial delivered a jolt of radical honesty: mind-blowing rainbow trout tartare entangled with fermented kohlrabi and a whey and lemon balm vinaigrette; seasonal white asparagus with basil, kimchi, a sake-based jus and seaweed butter; a sensational langoustine stew with sunchoke, bergamot, hazelnut, smoked eel and cherry blossoms; crispy sweetbreads with pak choi, vin jaune mousseline and lovage; juicy spring chicken with snow peas and wild garlic velouté; and to finish, stewed rhubarb with saffron ice cream, jasmine mousse and a dusting of lychee powder. Pure, oath-worthy delight. · Jean-Eude d’Aye-Quiry
Less is more. Few possess this gift, but Chef Philippe Heylen certainly masters the art of omission. With just a few premium ingredients, he creates minimalist dishes that are 'spot on'. There is only e...
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